Flown on the Wings of Love
by miss-mighty-aphrodite
Summary: three uncertain, scarred men are left behind to face the world after the death of a loved one.


**~ Flown on the Wings of Love~ **

Rating: Pg-13 for character death and severe angst.

Disclaimer: not mine never has been never will be, I sincerely hope this will never happen to any of the HP characters but this little piece has absolutely no effect on anything and I am not getting payed.

Feedback: please, I will love you forever.

Warnings: Severe angst, I really don't know what inspired me to write this but *shrugs* here it is anyway. There is a character death that features pretty prominently but its after the death so there isn't any violence.

A/N - im sorry but I don't have a beta so any mistakes are my own, plz don't let them reflect badly on the story.   

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"May she be flown on the wings of love, up to the highest of the heavens above. For all the joy she brought to us, for all her love in which we trust. She was a light, warm and pure, that light will go on, of this we are sure. Eternal, her passion, her spirit, her faith. Forever we'll mourn her, we'll weep for the waste. Though now she is gone, in our hearts she lives on, a part of us all, until the last one falls."  

The silence was deafening, muting everything; the rasp of an overcome breathe, the drizzle of a chilling rain and the fall of earth into the darkness to be accepted one more by the mother of all. 

_ . . . Earth to Earth, Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust . . . _

Everything seemed surreal, like the haze of some confusing dream, but the grey of the day and the suffocating sea of black, these were all that reality amounted to in this time of tears and terror, darkness and despair, of a confusion and a fear of that which could not be known.

 . . . I loved her as a sister, as a lover, as a friend, I loved her as a soul mate and I loved her more than life itself. I simply loved her . . .

Later we would return to our lives, our lonely lives without her now, for she had touched each of us in some way, the lover, the sister, the friend, she was so many different things to so many people yet she was still just another lost soul, a casualty in this war that seemed to have no end, no right and no wrong, only pain and loss.

 _ . . . The darkness grows ever closer, stealing from us the light, all that gives us reason for survival, for living. If this cruel existence could actually be called a living in any way . . . _

So many labels, titles and names, such a complex creature, confusing, mysterious, contradictory, magical, she was all of this but even more, she was what she was and will always be. My Hermione. Your Hermione. Our Hermione. Her Hermione. Simply Hermione, no paltry words could do her justice.  

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She was not the first to fall, that had been Cedric, nor would she be the last, who knew who that would be or when, but she was the one we would all remember. Even as we stood there that day, the three of us, the last of the true order of the phoenix, one of us said a guilty prayer of thanks, that he had not been the one to die that cold and lonely day, one of us said a prayer of hope, that she would be the last even as he knew it was it was a futile hope and one of us said a heartfelt prayer for revenge, for a chance to right the wrongs and be the hero that he so wished he could be. Perhaps one day I will tell you of my prayer that day, but perhaps you would be shocked, for we all have our secrets, our shame and our guilty wishes.  

We were all that was left of our once proud order, we had such hopes, such foolish faith in our strength, of the undeniable ability of good to triumph over evil every time. We were wrong. At the beginning I would have said the lives of a few were worth it for peace and freedom for the greater humanity but then the price grew and kept growing from a few to so very many and now I ask myself, is anything worth the pain and the loss of the best of us? This question ways heavily on me day and night, as does the secret part of me that shouts, that cries and struggles within me, whispering doubts and niggling fears, the suggestion that I could end it all, could save my self further pain, could hide away from the cruel reality of the world as it is now, that same part of myself that I pound down into submission as I wake to find a new day, a new fight and the knowledge that we three are the last left to fight and so must go on, must fight on for all those who can fight no longer.

Ron. Ron was always so intense, so furious, a living flame fuelled by furious passion, faith and longing. Somehow, it was not surprising that he was the first to strike in that terrible first battle, one of the few to survive by some strange quirk of fate. In my most brutally honest moments I admit that I have always been slightly jealous of him, of his courage and conviction when I have always seemed to myself to be unsure and unworthy, even though I knew he never thought that of me. He was always my best friend, but he and Hermione always shared something more, a deeper communication that always left me feeling like I was missing something, almost as if they spoke in their own special language. Ron was Hermione's lover, her husband, her soul mate and when she died that day I knew that a part of him died as well, a vital part that we would never see again. Now he is just like us, one of three men, who used to be three naïve boys, and who are now just three lonely beings adrift on the sea of destiny, but Ron will fight on.

Draco. Draco always seemed to be the dark one, the one who would inevitably succumb to that darkness within him. But he was like a wounded bird, a broken, frail thing that snapped to protect itself but when healed, he soared and joined the fight for the light. Hermione was the one that healed him, the one that saw something beneath the cold and distant façade, and since then they had been fast friends, they had shared an understanding that no one else could fathom. When Hermione left us, Draco might have finally given in, without the person who had so much faith in him, the person he really fought for, the very person he survived for, he might have submitted to the evil the surrounded us all, but he didn't. Draco is strong, and Hermione has left her mark on him, as she has on all of us, Draco will fight on.

And me. The great and powerful Harry Potter. At least that's what they always told me, I never really saw what was so special though. Ron had the courage and passion, Draco had the quick mind, smooth tongue and the cool, calculating logic, Hermione had faith, she was wise and loving and had the kind of strength I could only dream of. And then there was me. I was and am of average intelligence, I have always resented my destiny and find it especially hard to have faith in much of anything, because I know that nothing really is powerful enough to banish the darkness, to save us all. How can I have faith in anything if I do not have faith in myself? But Hermione was always there, to encourage me, to bolster my flagging courage, to surround me in her love until all the world seemed all right again. At times I thought I loved her, at times I may have hated her just because she was so effortlessly perfect, or at least seemed that way to me, but now that all I have left is her memory I know she was always my friend always there for me and had just as many faults and doubts as everyone else, but overcame them, so that she could be everything we needed. For that memory, for Hermione, I will fight on, we all will.

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Three men sit alone on a calm hillside at dusk, their thought far away as they face the world together, somewhere confusingly between strangers and brothers, really knowing so little about each other but knowing some things they would rather not, united in their abiding love for one woman and the secrets they hold. They are the last of the good, the brave, the chosen, as flawed as you and me but still our last and only defence against what we cannot know, but all fear in the very depths of our beings. And somewhere above them soar the spirits of those who have gone before, flown on the wings of love but remaining in some part with all of us, their strength and love giving us hope as they watch over us and all that will be.              

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End file.
